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Is North Korea a communistic State?

Is North Korea communistic?

  • Total voters
    24
It may call itself Communist, but Kim Jong-il is so off his rocker that I don't think he even knows what kind of country NK is anymore. It is "whatever Kim Jong-il decides to call it today"-ism. :)

And anyway... it has deviated far from Communism. The ruling class lives in paradisaical luxury in a fashion far removed from the every day realities of the nation, while everyone else has to catch grains of rice spilling from the goods train that is headed to one of various palaces. Last time I checked, that's not what collectivization and equal distribution looks like.

You'll notice that any east Asian nation that adopted communism has simply become a modern remake of the imperial dynasties. Emperors, in other words.
 
celticwar17 said:
Yes, it is communist. If you want to make a more specific term for what they are, sure.
The term communism has become much more broad since the late 1950s, not just Carl Marx's/etc. specific plan.
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The problem with this line of thought is that defines Communism as anything self proclaimed Communists have tried. Thus, capitalism is Communism as are private property rights, class based societies, Western export oriented economies and rule by the few, basically everything Marx said to reject. If we deviate in any meaningful way from Marx, we run the risk of defining countries like Switzerland as Communist.
 
digsbe said:
It is ruled by the WKP which is a communist party with their own flavor. I voted yes, however some of their actions aren't in line with pure communism.
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How exactly is a country ruled by the few, with a strong central state, with clear class distinctions Communist?

The problem with your line of thinking is that anything self proclaimed Communists have done is therefore Communist. Basically you just argued France, the UK, Canada, the US and Switzerland are Communist.
 
Wake said:
Is North Korea communistic or not?
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Depends how you define Communist.

Marx explicitly wrote that a Communist country would be ruled by the worker. And since the only people left after a Communist revolution would be workers, it would be direct democracy (scary **** eh?). Due to there only be workers, there would be a classless society. North Korea fails those two criteria right off the bat.

Moreso, Marx wrote that a Communist nation does not trade with the West. North Korea at least matches this partially, but not by choice. For the same reason China and the Former USSR fail this test (and the earlier two, gang of 6 anyone, worker rule my ***?). And more importantly, Marx wrote against Capitalism and property rights. China and Russia have brought those back with some caveats, and North Korea has property rights for its elite class.

If we stick with the actual definition of Communism, North Korea fails pretty hard in almost all categories. The problem with defining Communism based on the actions of those in the past 50 years is that it renders Communism to mean whatever self proclaimed Communists have done. Which include strong property rights, a ruling elite with little to no voice by the people, export oriented economies focusing on the West and frameworks to encourage capitalism. The idiotic idea of defining Communism not by what Marx wrote but by what "communists" have done is that it renders most countries in the world at some point in their history Communist. Is that intelligent? No. Does that produce any thing of value? No. So why do some people use it? Probably because they first don't know what Communism actually is and don't realize they just classified Switzerland as Communist.
 
Temporal said:
You'll notice that any east Asian nation that adopted communism has simply become a modern remake of the imperial dynasties. Emperors, in other words.
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Ideology may be the universal language, but we only speak the local dialect.
 
NKorea is indeed a communistic state. There has been a move as of late to redefine corporatism as capitalism, socialism as communism, and communism as nothing. No state is "communist", it seems, because in the theory communism works, and all these states don't.
 
cpwill said:
NKorea is indeed a communistic state. There has been a move as of late to redefine corporatism as capitalism, socialism as communism, and communism as nothing. No state is "communist", it seems, because in the theory communism works, and all these states don't.
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Do you realize how much you just contradicted yourself?
 
Pretty sure I didn't. State control of industry (which is really corporatism) is now "free market" because "socialism" can only mean state ownership of the means of production. To the extent that it does which it totally doesn't and those who think that it does are just right-wing-nutcases like Glenn Beck. Communism has never happened because Engle's version never came true.
 
On the economic basis (and Marx most certainly focused on economics of society) NK uses a communist model. Those that say NK isn't communist because it fails to fit the ideal outlined by Marx are purist, much like my father was when it came to using Marx as the benchmark, however, reality often changes from the ideal.

Kim has most definetly succeeded in making a hereditary succession of leadership, but then again Mao effectively did so as well - though not with blood relations. Stalin did much like Mao - created a cult of personality to continue their policies.

So yes - it is a communist state. Just like a democratic state or socialist state, there are many variations, but at the core they share primary conditions. In this case - one party rule and state control of all economic policy and means of production.
 
Marx explicitly wrote that a Communist country would be ruled by the worker.
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Communism, like capitalism, is a socio-economic system. It cannot exist in a single country.

Moreso, Marx wrote that a Communist nation does not trade with the West.
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What are you going on about? Quote please?

Marx wrote against Capitalism and property rights. China and Russia have brought those back with some caveats, and North Korea has property rights for its elite class.
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Marx wrote about private property in terms of the means of production, which I believe is still nationalized in North Korea.

On the economic basis (and Marx most certainly focused on economics of society) NK uses a communist model.
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No, from what we know they are utilizing a form of the Soviet model.

Stalin did much like Mao - created a cult of personality to continue their policies.
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Stalin and Mao didn't create these, the bureaucracy did.
 
Khayembii Communique said:
Communism, like capitalism, is a socio-economic system. It cannot exist in a single country.
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I always get pissed off when I read statements like this. Why cannot communism exist in a single country? If you believe in national sovereignty, self-management and free trade, it should. It should even exist on a communal level, it's "communism" after all.
Saying what you are saying means there is no national sovereignty.
 
Canell said:
I always get pissed off when I read statements like this. Why cannot communism exist in a single country?
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Um, the exact same reason that capitalism cannot exist in a single country.

Saying what you are saying means there is no national sovereignty.
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It has nothing to do with national sovereignty. Nations don't get to choose the socio-economic systems in which they exist, operate and develop.
 
If you follow the strict definition, then they are socialist. They are not communist, because
1. They have a state
2. They don't have a classless society. They have the ruling class and the impoverished working class.

However, they are the most socialist state in the world, hence also the state closest to communism.

Some socialist/communists call them state capitalism, but that is just because they are embarrased they exist. North Korea is not a capitalistic society.
 
Khayembii Communique said:
Um, the exact same reason that capitalism cannot exist in a single country.



It has nothing to do with national sovereignty. Nations don't get to choose the socio-economic systems in which they exist, operate and develop.
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That really is not true. They can and do choose their internal socio-economic system, where their choices are limited is when they wish to interact commercially with other nations. Pretty much every nation chooses and designs their internal socio-economic system.
 
Khayembii Communique said:
It has nothing to do with national sovereignty. Nations don't get to choose the socio-economic systems in which they exist, operate and develop.
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Perhaps you're right. In todays world may be not... but they should. Otherwise all talks about personal and national sovereignty and freedom are just crap.

End the world. :)
 
That really is not true. They can and do choose their internal socio-economic system
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No they do not. Governments can control economic policy internally, certainly, but they do not have control over the fundamental laws of motion of the system in which they operate.
 
Marx wasn't the only communist theorist. If anything NK is a bizarre mixture of Stalinism and monarchy. Usually when you get totalitarian regimes, they blend together ideologically as the state becomes more interested in maintaining control than furthering some cause. If any real-life country exemplifies George Orwell's Oceania, it's North Korea.
 
Khayembii Communique said:
No they do not. Governments can control economic policy internally, certainly, but they do not have control over the fundamental laws of motion of the system in which they operate.
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Really? Please define "Fundamental Laws of Motion of the system".
 
I'm liking your post just because your screen name is Drunkenasparagus
 
Really? Please define "Fundamental Laws of Motion of the system".
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These are not self-contained systems, that exist within given boundaries. Capitalism - and communism - are systems that require the universalization of the system in order to be able to operate. It is why capitalism spread so quickly across the globe in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is also why the Soviet Union collapsed. The unversalization of the system is built into the very foundation of the system itself; without it, it cannot survive.

I don't know why this is so difficult for you to understand.

Totalitarianism, personality cults, and repression dressed up in the guise of worker's liberation.
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How is this "Stalinism," exactly? Why is this attributed to Stalin? Why not any other of a couple dozen dictators?

How are poverty and totalitarianism mutually exclusive? It's a lot more than telescreens and two-minute hates.
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Totalitarianism cannot exist outside of Orwell's novel and Lucas' film. It's physically impossible. I was pointing out the absurdity of calling the North Korean state totalitarian when it doesn't even apparently have electricity.
 
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